What About Hypocrisy?

1. 0:07 Thank you. Thank you.
2. 0:33 Good morning, everybody.
3. 1:01 On April 24, 1990, NASA engineers launched the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. It was hailed as the greatest leap in astronomy since Galileo, who in 1610, with a much less sophisticated telescope, discovered four of Jupiter's moons, Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto.
4. 1:32 This earth-shattering revelation proved that not all celestial bodies revolved around the planet Earth. It shattered the geocentric view of the universe, that literally everything had revolved around us. It also got him declared as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.
5. 1:49 He bore that condemnation until his death under house arrest in 1642, and it was only lifted in 1992 by Pope John Paul II. 1992, that gets us back to the Hubble. It was launched into space.
6. 2:04 It was a $1.5 billion instrument designed to peer into the deepest, oldest parts of the universe. The heart of this telescope was a massive, hyper-precise mirror, polished to perfection, over three pain-taking years.
7. 2:23 The technicians who built it were absolute experts. They ran countless internal diagnostic tests. They checked and rechecked their math. They confidently declared that the mirror was a flawless masterpiece of human engineering.
8. 2:41 But then, the telescope reached orbit. It turned its lens toward the heavens, and it beamed its first images back to planet Earth. The pictures were a disaster. They were blurry, unfocused, and shrouded in a strange, hazy mist.
9. 3:01 What went wrong? It turned out that the engineers had relied on a single, faulty testing device on the planet Earth to measure their mirror. And the testing device had a tiny, microscopic flaw, no wider than the width of one-thousandth of a human hair.
10. 3:18 But because they calibrated the mirror against a broken standard, the mirror itself that they made was ground perfectly wrong. Now, the tragedy wasn't just that the mirror was flawed. The tragedy was that the engineers spent years looking directly at a broken instrument, completely blind to the fact that they had miscalculated everything.
11. 3:41 They were utterly blind to their own blindness. Brothers and sisters, this is exactly what hypocrisy and self-righteousness do to the human heart. In our church's What About series, today we ask the pressing question, what about hypocrisy?
12. 3:57 More importantly, what about hypocrisy in the church? Like the brilliant engineers I just described to you, the Pharisee in Luke chapter 18 stands in the temple and he looks at the mirror of his own life. And he declares it a flawless masterpiece.
13. 4:15 He ticks off his theological checklist. He fasts. He fasts more than he has to. He tithes. And he avoids the scandalous sins of his day. He looks down at his self-made testing equipment and he concludes, God, I thank you that I am not like other men.
14. 4:33 But he is suffering from a catastrophic spiritual blindness. He has calibrated his soul against a broken earthly standard. The standard was the standard of how his neighbor is doing. His standard was of his own performance. He fails to see that when his life is held up to the blinding, infinite holiness of God's law, the verdict is devastating.
15. 4:56 Romans chapter 3, which we'll read, also tells us this truth. The cosmic images of our hearts are completely ruined in sin. It thunders, there is none righteous. No, not one. We cannot fix our own distorted vision, which is why we must turn to the infallible standard of God's word to reveal the diagnosis and the cure.
16. 5:18 Today we're going to look at the horrifying danger of standing in the house of God, looking at our own spiritual bankruptcy and calling it perfection. We are going to see how Jesus shatters our self-made mirrors, not to leave us in despair, but to drive us to the only true righteousness that can save us, which is in Christ alone.
17. 5:38 Thank God he did not come to call the righteous, for as we're going to see, there are none of those, but he came to call sinners like you and like me this morning. If you're able right now, please stand for the reading of God's word. It's going to come up on the screen.
18. 5:53 Our first text is in Luke chapter 18, verses 9 through 14, where Jesus says, He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
19. 6:14 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week.
20. 6:29 I give tithes of all I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.
21. 6:48 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Now, just as the humble tax collector recognized his desperate need for mercy in those verses, the following verses from Romans chapter 3, where the Apostle Paul explicitly outlines the universal reality of human sinfulness, also unpack why every person requires the exact same grace.
22. 7:13 Romans chapter 3, starting in verse 10, says this, As it is written, None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.
23. 7:28 Together they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. For by the works of the law, no human being will be judged in his sight, judged justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
24. 7:53 This universal need for a savior established by Paul and Romans there is precisely why Jesus came to earth. To this, Jesus responds to those who questioned his ministry by revealing that he came specifically for those who recognize their spiritual sickness.
25. 8:09 In Mark chapter 2, verse 17, we read, And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
26. 8:26 Congregation, these are the words of our Lord. Please be seated. Almighty and most holy God, you are clothed in unapproachable light, yet you condescend to speak to us through your living and your active word.
27. 8:49 We confess that apart from your grace, we are naturally blind to our own deep spiritual poverty, often mistaking our external religious performance for true righteousness. As your word is read and preached today, we pray that your Holy Spirit would shatter our self-righteous delusions and expose the danger of our legalistic hearts.
28. 9:10 Do not allow us to hide behind the mask of religion, but strip away the pride so that we may flee to the scandalous grace that is only found in Christ. We ask that you would give us eyes of faith to see Jesus as the great physician who has come to heal and justify the spiritually bankrupt.
29. 9:28 Magnify the glory of his propitiation in our sight this hour and transform our hearts from defensive hypocrisy to genuine repentance and thankful obedience. And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.
30. 9:46 Amen. This morning, I'm going to walk through these scriptures with four clear sections as we consider the subtle yet dangerous reality of hypocrisy within the church. PDFs First, we're going to examine the anatomy of hypocrisy in human sin, where we will diagnose the deadly delusion of what I call comparative righteousness through the lens of our total depravity that is revealed by God's holy law.
31. 10:14 Second, we will confront the danger of legalism, the sharp contrast between empty religion built upon human performance and true grace of God that rests upon propitiation. That is the atonement made by Jesus on the cross by the shedding of his blood.
32. 10:30 Third, we will explore the nature of self-righteousness and the path to true repentance, applying these truths directly to the respectable sins that so easily ensnare us in confessional churches like this. Finally, we'll rejoice in the physician's mission to discover why Jesus came, specifically for sinners like us.
33. 10:54 It anchors our hope in the justifying grace that is in Christ alone. Anatomy of hypocrisy, danger of legalism, the nature of self-righteousness, and the physician's mission. That's what we're going to look at this morning. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would use this time in the Word to shatter any remaining illusions of self-righteousness in our hearts and draw us afresh to the mercy found only at the foot of the cross.
34. 11:20 Let us now turn our attention to this truth. The first one, anatomy of hypocrisy and human sin, which will lead us to confront delusions of comparative righteousness. The parable before us diagnoses the fallen human condition through the lens of what is called total depravity.
35. 11:36 Jesus told this parable, quote, to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. That's Luke 18, verse 9. The introduction by our Lord here is crucial because it reveals the target audience, those who possess a false confidence in their own spiritual standing.
36. 11:58 These individuals, quote, trusted in themselves. They place their confidence not in God's mercy, but in their own perceived righteousness. This self-trust is the very root of hypocrisy, ladies and gentlemen. It blinds the heart to the true nature of sin before God.
37. 12:15 Now, I have to tell you, it would be easier this morning if the leading character in this parable was a thug. But the Pharisee in this story is not a theological liberal or a flagrant lawbreaker. He was conservative, orthodox, and a highly disciplined religious man, much like many in our own Reformed Presbyterian circles today.
38. 12:37 You want to know what he looked like? Take a look up here. Take a look around you this morning. So, for starters, we have to resist the temptation to view him as an obvious villain. By the standards of his day, and even by many of our own cultural and ecclesiastical standards, this man was nothing less than exemplary.
39. 12:57 His hypocrisy was not a pretense of morality. By earthly measures, he was genuinely highly moral. Every one of you would probably have given him a golden star. He fasted twice a week. That's beyond the single fast required in the Jewish tradition on the Day of Atonement.
40. 13:12 He tithed of everything he possessed, even the smallest herbs in his garden. Yet his fundamental sin was the delusion of comparative righteousness. He measured himself not against the infinite holiness of God, but against other men. Standing in the temple, he prayed thus to himself, and I repeat, God, I thank you that I'm not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector.
41. 13:42 Notice the self-congratulatory tone in that prayer. It's actually a soliloquy. It's a speech to himself disguised as a prayer to God. He thanks God for what he has accomplished by himself, revealing a heart that views righteousness as a personal achievement rather than a divine gift.
42. 14:00 This comparative approach is a common trap for all of us. We look around at the scandals in the broader culture, at all the moral failures of others, even moral failures within God's church, and we quietly congratulate ourselves. But the Apostle Paul delivers a universal and devastating verdict in Romans chapter 3.
43. 14:20 Once again, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks after God. Every mouth is stopped, and the whole world becomes accountable to God. You see, the law was never given as a ladder of self-justification.
44. 14:36 It was given as a mirror to expose our utter inability and drive us to despair in ourselves. Romans chapter 3, verse 20 reiterates, For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in God's sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
45. 14:52 The standard that God demands is absolute perfection through perfect obedience to his law. Did you know that this morning? Beloved, this is what we call the covenant of works. We saw it in our last series on the Sermon on the Mount. Pastor James started out preaching in that series, and in Matthew 5, 48, when we concluded, we saw Jesus make this command.
46. 15:11 You are to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, which reiterates the Old Testament command in Leviticus 11, verse 45, that demands, You shall be holy, for I am holy. Not try to be as holy as you can be. Do your best, and I'll do the rest.
47. 15:28 It says you shall be holy. The obedience must be complete, both external and internal, and from the heart that God can see. This is why James declared, whoever keeps the whole law, yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all.
48. 15:43 That's a tough standard. Think of the Hubble mirror. It was rendered completely ineffective by a tiny, microscopic flaw. The divine standard is also impossible for sinners to meet on their own. One tiny deviation from perfect obedience, ladies and gentlemen, renders your entire life unacceptable before a holy God.
49. 16:02 And I know you're thinking right now what the disciples thought. In Matthew chapter 19, they said, Lord, if that's so, who can be saved? And Jesus replied, With people, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.
50. 16:17 Hypocrisy arises precisely when we twist this holy standard as a tool for self-exaltation. We use external obedience, church attendance, moral restraint to evade God's deeper demands in the spirit. Nothing less than perfect love for God and neighbor from a pure heart.
51. 16:36 I don't know how you're holding up, but I know how I am. The Pharisee's resume looked impressive, but it could not withstand the scrutiny of God's perfect law. Remember, we're looking at the anatomy of hypocrisy right here. The Pharisee trusted in himself. He viewed his religious resume as sufficient, remaining blind to the reality that a true righteousness for God requires nothing less than perfect holiness.
52. 17:00 And that is something that no human being can attain. This diagnosis applies directly to us in the church. Total depravity does not mean that you're as bad as you possibly could be. But what it does mean is that sin has corrupted every one of your faculties, your mind, your will, and your emotions, so that even your best efforts are tainted.
53. 17:22 This is not news to any of you who've read the Bible. The Old Testament thunders this in Jeremiah, in Isaiah, in the Psalms. We read verses like this. The heart is more deceitful than all else and desperately sick. All of our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.
54. 17:39 And in his sight, no living man is righteous. The Pharisee's blindness to his own condition reflects the engineers with the flawed Hubble mirror. Calibrated against a broken standard, he declared himself flawless. We must allow God's word to shatter this illusion today, ladies and gentlemen.
55. 17:58 The Pharisees and their fathers represent all who seek salvation through self-effort. Before his conversion, the apostle Paul embodied this. He listed his credentials, circumcised on the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, meaning he was zealous and blameless and righteous under the law.
56. 18:21 He gave that resume in Philippians chapter 3. And yet, after encountering Christ, he counted it as all loss and rubbish. The word in Greek is skubalon, and it's not a nice word. Similarly, Martin Luther, a scrupulous monk in the 16th century, realized through agonizing over the righteousness of God that self-effort was futile.
57. 18:44 It was only when he grasped that justification was by faith alone that the gospel break through. You see, no matter how zealous, none who trust in their own righteousness will be justified. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned this, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
58. 19:05 I'm here to tell you here this morning that your righteousness will not surpass the righteousness of the Pharisee that I just described in the temple. Which gets me to my second heading, where we look at the danger of legalism. It's the age-old struggle between religion and grace.
59. 19:22 Having diagnosed the problem, we now turn to the sharp contrast presented in the temple scene. The Pharisee embodies the danger of legalism, a religion built entirely on human performance, ritual adherence, and moral scorekeeping. He believed that his external alignment with the law could somehow compensate for any internal rebellion or heart deficiency.
60. 19:45 Now, the confessions of our faith describe the unregenerate man this way, and it's hard, but it's biblical. It says that he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined. Which gets us to all evil.
61. 20:01 Say, in Augustine, wrote about this centuries earlier. He basically says that the unregenerate person can do one of two things. He can sin, and he cannot not sin. That second one sounds cooler than the original Latin. It's non passe non peccare.
62. 20:16 That's all you can do, sin and not not sin. Yet the Pharisee presumed that his fasting and tithing satisfied God. This religion is religion in its most refined and therefore dangerous form. You see, there have always been but two systems of religion. God's system of divine accomplishment in Christ, which involves grace, faith, and internal security, and man's system based upon human achievement, which is literally quite everything else.
63. 20:44 It consists of works, rituals, and external hypocrisy. This second system, which is inspired by Satan, dominates the world and leads all who follow it to eternal doom. Why? Because you have to work your way up. And I've already told you that the standard requires absolute perfection.
64. 21:02 The Pharisee's prayer was not truly directed to God, but was a public declaration of his own superiority. He stood boldly, listing his credentials, as if presenting his resume to the Almighty. Ladies and gentlemen, legalism always leads to contempt for others, because it elevates self at the expense of grace.
65. 21:24 Now, in a stark and beautiful contrast stands the tax collector. And we don't know what tax collector means today the way it meant back then, so I want you to think of crack prostitute when I say that, okay? Standing afar off, unwilling to lift his eyes to heaven, beating his breast in grief and contrition, he cried out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
66. 21:48 I want you to pay attention to the precise language here. In the original Greek, this actually is, God, be propitiated to me, the sinner. This is no vague request for leniency. It is an appeal to the atoning, propitiatory sacrifice that God himself provides.
67. 22:07 What do I mean by propitiatory? It's nothing less than what was accomplished by the brutal murder of the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered on the cross, while bearing the sin of every believer. While he was doing that, as bad as the physical pain was, for the first time ever, the second person of the Trinity had his beloved Father refuse to look upon him.
68. 22:27 That's what propitiation is. Atonement by the shedding of blood. In Hebrews chapter 9, we realize that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. The tax collector in these verses acknowledges his utter sinfulness.
69. 22:42 He refers to himself emphatically as the sinner and casts himself entirely upon God's mercy and the covenant. He brings nothing but his guilt and his need. Grace does not bargain with God using human merit. It throws itself wholly upon the substitutionary sacrifice of God made available to us in Christ.
70. 23:02 Legalism, on the other hand, is toxic religion because it keeps sinners trapped in performance and pride. Grace in the true gospel is the true gospel because it humbles us and it exalts Christ alone. The tax collector's posture and prayer manifested true humility and repentance while the Pharisees revealed pride and self-deception.
71. 23:25 Now, having said all that this morning, if some of you feel a little uncomfortable, I'm going to share a personal testimony of my own. In addition to serving as an elder here at Christ Church, I've been a deputy sheriff for over 32 years. Many of you know that.
72. 23:40 In that time, I've witnessed profound human failure and evil that many of you will never, ever, ever encounter in your life. There are things that I've seen that I literally wish I could unsee. Yet, when people hear the stories of the stupidity and the wickedness that I've seen, after hearing story after funny, pathetic, and or gruesome story, ask my wife and my daughter.
73. 24:02 They know all of them. Most often, they get around to saying something like this. I don't know how you do it. For a long time, my response was rooted in a sense of superiority. I'd say something like this. It's easy. When I look at these train wrecks, these dumpster fires, these squanderers of every opportunity, when I look at the mess they've made in their lives by actively tearing down everything they care about with both their hands, on purpose, I look at them, and I told people, I'm glad I'm not like them.
74. 24:36 And if a subject ever gave me a hard time, which occasionally happened, I would take care of business. Listen, loser. Let's review a couple of things right now. You are 37 years old, and you still live with your mother. You are the night manager at a laundromat, and right now, your car smells like a skunk's backside.
75. 24:55 For the older people in the group right here, if you were born in the 40s or 50s, that means it reeked of marijuana, which is basically another name for the devil's lettuce. And I'm not a connoisseur, but all of that smells like a used diaper to me.
76. 25:11 So I would get back to this baked stoner, and I'd say, listen, you need to look up too far to talk down to me. Okay? I don't crave your affirmation, and while we're at it, I don't want to be you. Nobody does. So why don't you put that in your pipe and smoke it? I know some of you are a little freaked out to hear me talk like that from the pulpit, because this is the Lord's Day, and that was less than cordial.
77. 25:31 I did clean it up for Sunday morning, but some of you right now are sitting at me with smiles on your face going, yeah, you get him, super cop. And the retired officers in the room were quietly chuckling, but I want you to stay with me right here, right now. The point is that it was easy to look down on the killer, the car thief, the drug dealer, the addict, the child molester, the prostitute, the wife beater, the profane drunk, to look down on every guilty failure and believe that I was better by human standards.
78. 26:04 And I concluded that I was, because like many of you, I was looking smugly at the wrong mirror. But one day, the Spirit convicted me through God's Word. It was actually these verses that I'm reading to you today. It's uncomfortable, but you see, I'd become the very Pharisee in Luke chapter 18.
79. 26:24 Can you see that this morning? Now, I know you cut yourself a little slack, Rick. You're not a meth head. I know, but when you set the bar that low, you're literally better than anyone. And you're going to falsely conclude that it's all good.
80. 26:41 But the Bible repeatedly declares that no one is good. Psalm 143, 1 Kings chapter 8, Ecclesiastes chapter 7, Jeremiah chapter 17, and as we saw this morning, Romans chapter 3, over and over and over again, no one is good.
81. 26:56 Why? We all fall short. Only God is good. I just wanted to tell you all that because if in my position as an elder, I can make the Pharisee's mistake, so can you. So can any of us. So this morning, may the Lord grant us eyes to see our own hearts clearly and remember the adage, but for God's grace, there go I.
82. 27:19 Pastor Kent has challenged us in the past to ask the Lord to show us our depravity. Usually when you see me up here, I'm going to say that. I repeat it because it bears repeating. When you allow the Lord to honestly show you in love your depravity, you're going to learn about self-righteousness and true repentance, which is our next division.
83. 27:40 The physical postures of the two men in Luke 18, the upright Pharisee and the pathetic tax collector, powerfully reveal the condition of their hearts. The Pharisee stood by himself, erect and confident, boasting in his achievements. The tax collector stood far off, contrite, unable to even lift his eyes to heaven, beating his breast in anguish.
84. 28:03 True repentance, reformed theology teaches, begins with a profound sense of sin and misery. It shatters pride and leaves us with nothing but need. The tax collector's actions demonstrated deep humility. He stood at a distance aware of his unworthiness, and he would not even lift his eyes.
85. 28:21 He was overwhelmed with guilt and shame. Beating his breast was a gesture of extreme anguish. He acknowledged that the heart is the source of all evil. His prayer was directed to God, be propitiated to me, the sinner. In that, he viewed himself as the chief of sinners, much like the apostle Paul later would in 1 Timothy.
86. 28:39 And Jesus' conclusion with the Pharisees listening is shocking. He says, I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other. The tax collector received justification, declared righteous by God as a gift permanently and completely.
87. 28:57 People like to quote Romans 3.23. I'm going to add verse 24 again together. If you're going to memorize scripture, put both of these together. This is what it says. Negative part, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Positive part, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
88. 29:15 Without works, without merit or ritual, the guilty man is pronounced righteous through faith in God's provision made in Christ. The Pharisee left unchanged, more hardened in his guilt and self-righteousness because justification is by faith alone.
89. 29:32 It's grounded in the imputed righteousness of Christ. Imputed means something he gives you that you didn't have. It's pictured in the Old Testament sacrificial system and it is fulfilled at the cross. This morning in our text, the Pharisee's self-exaltation led to humbling and the tax collector's humility led to exaltation which is why verse 14 of Luke 18 says this, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
90. 29:59 Now to apply these truths directly to our own setting because a sermon without an application is missing something, I have to recognize that respectable sins even thrive in sound churches like this. The Pharisee once again was not an obvious outsider, but a respected, distinguished religious leader.
91. 30:19 In the same way, subtle forms of self-righteousness can take root among us when we substitute external conformity for a genuine heart dependence on Christ. What am I talking about? How about this? One common manifestation is what I've noticed and I call theology employed as a weapon.
92. 30:39 Rather than allowing sound doctrine to humble us before God, we may wield precise theological knowledge or the Westminster standards to belittle those perceived as less knowledgeable. This approach transforms truth into self-elevation, echoing the Pharisee's contempt for the tax collector while missing the heart of the gospel.
93. 30:59 In 1 Corinthians, this says, When you speak the truth without love, what are you? Nothing. Another common form appears in what I've already discussed called comparative righteousness. Just to recap, we may derive a false sense of security by contrasting our lives with progressive elites, with secular culture, or those, get this one, who sleep in on Sunday.
94. 31:21 And we quietly conclude that we're glad that we're not like them. We don't park close to the church in the first-time visitor spot like we're not supposed to after the first time you're here. Okay? Such comparisons replace rest in the righteousness of Christ with the fleeting comfort of cultural superiority.
95. 31:38 They blind us to our own remaining corruption. A third area, you may not have thought about, involves performative family life. A lot of nice families in here today, and I thank you for that. But in covenant communities, there can be unspoken pressure to appear perfect, to project an image of flawless home, complete with orderly children, a consistent family worship, and curated public appearances, all the while concealing marital struggles or rebellious hearts.
96. 32:08 Dismasking fosters hypocrisy as we fear that admitting weakness would diminish our standing among the brethren. To which I just want to tell you guys, I'm not perfect. So cut me a little slack, okay? And finally, we encounter the professionalized church service without love.
97. 32:25 Think about this for the people that serve you. There's diligent service on the session, hard work on the worship team, maybe the people that serve on committees. This can become a checklist that makes us feel indispensable. Yet it may coexist with the resentment towards those who serve less visibly, or make you sour when things don't go your way.
98. 32:47 All of this turns ministry into a self-exaltation rather than humble obedience, revealing a heart that is more concerned with personal reputation than with genuine love for God and neighbor. When you let your church experience happen like that, read Revelation chapter 2.
99. 33:02 You're in the Ephesian church that was orthodox but cold. But in each of these ways that I've just talked about, we risk committing the Pharisees ever. So once again, may the Lord grant us grace to examine our hearts honestly and turn afresh to Christ. Yet even as we confront these sober realities, we are not left without hope this morning.
100. 33:22 The same Savior who exposed the Pharisee's self-righteousness also declares the gracious purpose of his mission. In this final section, drawn from Mark chapter 2, verse 17, we have the anchor of our hope. It says that those who are well have no need for the physician, but those who are sick.
101. 33:42 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. You see, the tragedy of the Pharisee or any modern religious hypocrite is this. They fail to recognize their own sickness. Jesus came precisely for the spiritually bankrupt. Brothers and sisters, hear me on this.
102. 33:59 The kingdom of God is entered only by those who know that they are unworthy and cast themselves fully upon divine grace. The church is not a museum for saints. It's a hospital for sinners. On the cross, Christ bore the curse of the law, freeing us from performative righteousness.
103. 34:17 Justification is God's free gift applied through the atoning work of Christ. And those who humble themselves will be exalted in eternal glory. This remedy is the same today. Repent of your self-trust, acknowledge your sin, and receive the perfect righteousness of Christ by faith.
104. 34:33 This is the only way to be right with God. Remember those NASA engineers that I started out by talking about? The original primary mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope was never replaced. It was impossible to swap out the massive mirror in orbit.
105. 34:50 So NASA instead sent a shuttle, and astronauts had to install a corrective optics package called COSTAR, which stands for the Corruptive Optics Space Telescope Actual Replacement. They did this in December of 1993.
106. 35:05 So for three whole years, that expensive hunk of junk was circling the Earth. But this mission came at an enormous cost, up to another $1.5 billion in 1993, which was comparable to the original telescope itself. The original mirror had been ground too flat with a mere fraction of a width of a human hair, and it produced a spherical aberration that blurred every image.
107. 35:28 To correct it, the astronauts placed this COSTAR package before the flawed mirror, where it functioned like a pair of flawless glasses, perfectly compensating for the distortion, so the telescope could finally see with clarity.
108. 35:44 I want you all to see with clarity this morning. This is the glorious mystery of the gospel of sovereign grace. And the point is, you and I cannot fix the faulty mirrors of our broken hearts. No amount of religious tithing, moral performance, or external masking can correct the deep distortion of our sin.
109. 36:01 If you leave here today trying to grind your own soul into perfection and your own strength, you will remain trapped in the blinding, exhausting hypocrisy of the Pharisee. I know, that's hard, so let's face it. Most of you here are better than average.
110. 36:17 And most of you probably also think that God grades on a curve. And with that, some of you imagine that the human soul entered the world untouched by sin, free from the deep fracture or any ancient corruption, as though our nature remains exactly as God first intended it. Yet both scripture and the testimony of human experience screams otherwise.
111. 36:38 Ask yourself, why does the infant cry in distress? Why does the heart so readily incline towards evil, even before a conscious choice? Why does the will, though seemingly free, so consistently pursue lesser loves and call it liberty?
112. 36:53 Don't get me wrong, our nature was intended to be good, created upright and without flaw, but Adam fell. And in that fall, the root of our humanity was bent, corrupting all who descend from him. To this you might object. Perfection? I hear you, but how can God command what is impossible?
113. 37:10 The point is that the law was never meant to save. It serves instead to name the wound and expose the depth of our guilt. The commandments of God reveal the full measure of what love for God and neighbor requires, but it supplies no strength for fallen hands to obey.
114. 37:27 The mirror of God's holy law reveals a stain, but cannot cleanse it. To those who want to try harder, know that if righteousness could be obtained by human effort, Christ died in vain. But scripture proclaims from the cross that we are set free by grace alone.
115. 37:44 No dead man can answer the call on his own. No clay can command the potter who sits on the throne. Righteousness is not earned through striving, but it is freely bestowed as a gift. Grace is the divine hand that heals the will, not by coercion, but by making sinners willing.
116. 38:03 Until then, we choose according to what we love. And apart from this grace, our affections will never rise above self to choose God. Grace descends. It renews our sight. It redirects our desires to what is true and good. Therefore, whenever we obey, we must give all thanks and praise, for even faith itself is kindled by grace.
117. 38:24 Right now, as I speak, I'm studying for licensure. And I read about this in the Westminster Shorter Cazochism, question 86, and it says this. Faith is a saving grace where we receive and rest in Christ alone for salvation as offered in the gospel.
118. 38:40 With that in mind, we must not flatter mortal dust or offer any confidence in self-saving efforts. Instead, we proclaim the cross where pride is slain and sinners find life through sovereign grace. From death to life, the heart is restored, not by the determination of man, but by the grace of the Lord.
119. 38:58 No wage is earned. No merit is shown. It is grace alone. With that in mind, I'm going to ask you all to drop the mask. Stop looking at your own flawed performance and instead look to Jesus, the great physician, who came not for the well, but for the sick.
120. 39:15 On the cross, he took the blurry, broken, cursed wreckage of your sin upon himself. Just as NASA invested an immense additional sum to fix the broken telescope's distortion, Christ, at the infinite cost of his own blood, now stands perfectly before the Father in our place.
121. 39:32 What does he do? His flawless righteousness corrects and covers all of our sinful distortions. So when you beat your breast like the tax collector and cry out for covenant mercy, the Holy Heavenly Father looks at you. He no longer sees the distortion of your sin.
122. 39:48 He sees the perfect reflection of his beloved Son. If you are here today without Christ, perhaps resting in your own goodness, your own moral efforts, or the... that you've compared yourself to really bad men and found yourself better, I want you to hear this urgent gospel of Heal one more time.
123. 40:06 Repent of your self-righteousness this very hour and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Acknowledge the bent root of Adam's fall within your heart and cease from all labors to justify yourself. Cast yourself wholly upon the mercy of God offered freely in the gospel. You'll find that the same sovereign grace that justified the tax collector is extended to you today.
124. 40:27 Turn from the wide path of human achievement to the narrow way of grace alone. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You will be justified. You will be forgiven. You'll be clothed in His perfect righteousness. My invitation is for you to go home justified today.
125. 40:45 Not because your mirror is flawless, but because your Savior is. Let me pray. Our Father and our Sovereign God, we confess that our hearts are naturally prone to the delusion of the Pharisee, constantly seeking to hide our brokenness behind masks of moral performance and self-righteousness.
126. 41:05 Forgive us for the times we have looked at the mirror of your holy law and chosen to judge ourselves by our neighbor's flaws rather than by your perfect standard. Strip away our pride today, Lord, and grant us the humility of the tax collector to see ourselves as we truly are, utterly dependent upon your grace.
127. 41:24 We thank you that you do not leave us to the blindness of our own or abandon us to the curse of our sin, but you sent Jesus Christ to be the great physician for our sick souls. We thank you for the staggering gift of justification which frees us from the exhausting burden of trying to earn our way into your presence.
128. 41:43 May your Holy Spirit seal this truth in our hearts this week, moving us away from legalism and towards the true life of genuine, thankful obedience. Let us leave this sanctuary this morning resting entirely in the perfect righteousness of our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
129. 41:59 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
130. 42:15 Amen.

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